Showerthought: I brought a stopwatch to our book club's 'Moby-Dick' debate

Our group in Austin was arguing about how long the cetology chapters felt, so I timed our discussion. We spent 47 minutes just on Chapter 32, 'Cetology.' The funny part is, nobody noticed the stopwatch on the table until my friend Dan pointed it out and said, 'Are you quantifying our boredom?' It completely derailed the debate into a meta-conversation about reading pace. I learned that introducing a literal timer makes people super self-conscious about their opinions. Has anyone else had a simple prop totally hijack your book talk?

2 comments

2 Comments

rubyschmidt2d ago

Used to think props were distracting, but your stopwatch story shows they can reveal something real about how we read.

kim_west2d ago

Yeah, that's a whole mood. I get what @rubyschmidt means about props showing our real reading habits.